Travel to Rajasthan
07-21 FEBRUARY 2019
DAY 1-4
Zurich - Panjim, Goa
Not that we were planning this intercontinental trip in the middle of the Swiss winter, but when we had the opportunity to be invited to an Indian wedding, we got a great excuse to organize a travel to explore a part of India we could not give up.
So at 8:35 a.m. on February 7, 2019, we take a seat on a new Qatar flight to Goa. We arrive in Panjim at 2:40 the following morning, and we only have time to look out the window of our taxi to start peeking at the new dusty world that awaits us out there, before sleeping a few hours until early morning, when we have to meet the groom and start a long day of shopping.
HOTEL: Casa Fortuna, Dona Paula, Panjim
After a very spicy breakfast in the hotel, we dedicate the day to greetings, to observe some Hindu ceremony in preparation for the wedding, and especially to get suitable clothes to participate in the ceremonies that for 2 days will brighten this corner of Goa. After having crossed back and forth the chaotic center of Panjim, crowded with locals and English tourists, we have bought 3 dresses for me and several shirts and suits for Nic.
SHOPPING: Fabindia | Bombay Bazaar, clothing and tailoring in 1h | Mall de goa - Sochi
Skirts, lehengas, sandals, heavy gold necklaces, red silks, gold embroidery, rhinestones, earrings, bindi, Pijamas, Kurtas, slippers, bodices, a frenzy of servants ready to wrap you in the narrow folds of the saree, or to squeeze you in a bodice too tight for you, back and forth from one shop to another, from one side of the city to the opposite. Then back downtown to collect the tailoring work done in an hour, to try to dodge those who try to sell you another bracelet or anklet and finally we end the day on the beach, with half of the city, walking barefoot on the dark clay sand that shines in the sunset light.
After what would have been only the first of a series of group photos requested by the locals with us, strange Western beings, pale and with clear eyes, we huddle up in a restaurant, for our first real Indian culinary experience, or should I say clash with the spicy Asian cuisine. The next two days are spent in a whirlwind of music, colours, spices and fascinating and unique Indian ceremonies.
DINNER: Viva Panjim
DAY 5
Panjim - Jaisalmer
We fold our saree and kurtas, and pack our bags before we enjoy two not-so-long hours of sleep after the wedding and before our taxi arrives to take us to the airport. We take a flight to Jaisalmer at 5:25 a.m. which leads us to the first of our travel destinations in Rajasthan. Arrived at 10:30 in a tiny building that serves as the airport, we exit into a surreal desert landscape, rocky, arid, honey-colored, in which the small building of the airport is camouflaged. Our driver takes us to the city, which emerges on the horizon flickering like a mirage, along a busy road with motorcycles, tuk tuk, unstable trucks, camels, carts and people on foot.
We arrive in the small town and take possession of our room, in a magnificent Haveli (traditional middle-class house) run by an Italian girl. A succession of terraces on various levels, courtyards, stairs, and a magnificent room with an inner courtyard.
HOTEL: 1st Gate Home Fusion Hotel
We immediately set out to explore our first real Indian destination. The city, like all those of Rajasthan, develops like a shapeless and indistinguishable agglomeration, around a central fort. From the top of the walls the city appears an immense expanse of confused buildings, marked just by the presence of a satellite dish on each roof, rows of clothes hanging to dry, and some children playing on the terraces on the roofs.
After the visit to the fort, we enter the alleys of the city, without a precise destination, to explore the unbeaten streets, with no trace of other tourists, and go and see some Haveli. Not having found adequate alternatives among the restaurants, almost all Italian, unusually common in this city, we dine at the hotel, with Italian cuisine too, with a poor pizza and some other Indian delights. In the morning, before dawn, we head to the station for our first real adventure, the train journey that will take us to Jodhpur.
DAY 6
Jaisalmer - Jodhpur
We arrive at the station still in the dark, a lot of people waiting on the dock: we get on our blue train that arrives clattering noisily, where we have two seats in the Sleeper Class, a carriage with folding bunk beds, on which to sit or sleep.
The journey is very long, about 6 hours, that I spend chatting with a couple of Indians who occupy the places in front of ours, a soldier and his father, who talk to me on some curiosity about India but mostly ask me for details about Switzerland. At each station, a boy comes up with a giant container to dispense hot tea, and in the main stations, you go down to grab breakfast in the street kiosks on the sidewalks. A battered pepper and a pancake of lentils (kachori) seem to be the typical breakfast of travelers. After the long train ride, we reach Jodhpur, where we contract a ride to the hotel, a precarious house wrapped in lianas, located at a dirty crossroads teeming with people. We lodge also here in a Haveli, less luxurious but characteristic, from whose room to the last floor, after having overcome steep flights of stairs, we have a beautiful sight of the fort.
HOTEL: Jhankar Haveli
We spend the rest of the afternoon walking towards the Mehrangarh fort. We visit this majestic Moghul building: from the walls of the fort we can admire a beautiful view of the blue city, so called for the color of many of the houses that make up the agglomeration, once houses of the caste of Brahmins, painted in various shades of blue.
An interweaving of buildings, squares, courtyards, rooms inlaid with mirrors and colored fabrics, composes the beautiful fort, from which, then, we move away towards the temple Jaswand Thada, from which we admire a beautiful sunset. We return to the city center, and we go for dinner in a restaurant on top of a building with a view of the illuminated fort.
DINNER: Jharokha 360
DAY 7
Jodhpur - Udaipur
Once the main tourist attractions are over, we decide to dedicate the morning to explore the blue city. We enter the alleys of the city agglomeration, where in the early morning the shopkeepers clean the streets before opening their shops.
The strange and surreal habit of throwing all sorts of waste along the way, both on the driveway and in the open air drainage channels, makes it necessary to do an immense cleaning operation in the morning, when everyone works to pile up in large hills of waste, sweeping the ground with brooms of branches raising clouds of dust and debris. At some point in the morning, cleaning staff will pass by, mostly girls or women with cloth gloves and bands to protect mouth and nose, who collect this waste on rudimentary hand-drawn carts, to go and unload them out of the town.
It is not easy to get used to this way of life, and, disoriented, we take with us for a few hours the remains of the wrappings of our breakfast, bravely bought from a kiosk renowned for serving the best cardamom lassì and kachori in the city, if not Rajasthan. Despite the doubts about the cleanliness of the place, what we ate was so good as to require an encore at the end of the morning.
BREAKFAST: Shri Mishrilal Hotel
We get lost for a few hours in the tangle of city streets, and we walk among buildings, mostly dilapidated, blue as the sky, inlaid with a thousand decorations and thick stucco gratings on the windows. We lose the traces of the Fort, the only point of reference, and aimlessly we continue to walk in the outlying areas, which are teeming with shops, stalls of fruit on the road, corners full of flowers where the sellers pierce them in garlands to adorn the statues of the temples.
We collect spices and go back to pick up our luggage at our hotel, where the driver we hired comes to pick us up and take us to Udaipur, our next destination. On the way we stop at the Hindu temple of Ranakpur, a surreal place of worship that seems carved into a single block of white stone, inlaid with a thousand reliefs and marked by columns full of sculptures. A short stop to interrupt the 4-hours-long journey and we reach our destination.
Our hotel is located a few steps from the lake, a magnificent stretch of water on which all the elegant buildings of Udaipur overlook. We take a short walk to go to dinner, in a beautiful hotel overlooking the lake, where we eat on a table set in a window on the lake, barefoot and lying on pillows.
DINNER: Jagat Niwas Palace Hotel | HOTEL: The Neem tree
DAY 8
Udaipur
A new day, and a new imperial palace. We visit the palace of Udaipur, an imposing Moghul fortress that dominates the lake, and then we walk in the commercial alleys of the city, that of the jewelers, that of the merchants of fabrics, those of the food markets and of the spices. In the afternoon, we go to the lake, this time on the opposite bank, where we photograph a beautiful sunset, lighting up on the buildings that reflect on the calm mirror of water, with a thousand colors.
We are just in time to conclude our photo session for dinner. Or rather, to prepare dinner. In fact, in the morning, we enrolled in a cooking class, to learn how to prepare some Indian food, given the peculiarity of what we ate and, above all, to understand a little better what lies behind those hot and spicy curry sauces. In the cooking class, an Indian lady who speaks just enough English to be understood leads the procedures with her son, who sometimes takes care of explaining the details better. We learn how to prepare palak paneer, a basic sauce for each dish called curry, simple naan bread, stuffed or with butter, and we eat the most delicious dinner of our entire stay in India.
COOKING COURSE: Shashi’s cooking classes
DAY 9
Udaipur - Pushkar
To reach Pushkar, where going by train seems to be more difficult than expected, we have to take a train to Ajmer, and then a taxi, since the railway does not arrive there. We arrive in the afternoon, in our Haveli: a huge wooden door welcomes us in a decadent courtyard, surrounded by high walls crossed by balconies and stairs, all wrapped in a tangle of vines and climbing plants that fall into the void, shaken by some monkey climbing and trying to sneak into rooms and restaurant to steal something to eat.
HOTEL: Inn Seventh Heaven
We cross the small town centre, a small dirt road flanked by houses and bazaars, which unlike the other places where we have been, sell tourist trinkets and souvenirs. We decide to separate ourselves from the crowd of tourists who strangely flood the streets near the big Brahma temple, and we move to the lake. The city streets are concentric to the perimeter of the lake, and the inner one, the bazaar, has a series of transversal accesses, through the houses and the shops, that lead with some stairs to the level of the lake, the fulcrum of the city.
This lake, surrounded by immense steps (ghaat) crowned by the back of the buildings of the urban core, is a sacred place, where pilgrims, religious, and some Westerners in search of Nirvana, go to bathe their feet, head, or make ablutions to benefit from the power of sacred waters. You must walk barefoot, and given the very poor hygiene of the area, where cows and birds circulate freely, we kept the socks, which after being used also for the walk the next morning, ended up in a dustbin. We strongly advise you not to remain barefoot. The sunset is beautiful, it lights up in glod all the buildings and the lake, and we enjoy this moment taking some pictures. We dine at the hotel, with a meal not very worthy of note, given the scarcity of restaurants and clean places to eat in the city.
DAY 10
Pushkar - Jaipur
We wake up very early to go and admire the sunrise over the lake. It is very cold, but despite this, the undeterred worshippers crowd the shores of the lake and nude to take their ritual bath in the tubs along the perimeter.
We wait for our driver, who will accompany us to Ajmer. From here, after a long wait for a late train, we leave for Jaipur. We waste a lot of time at the station to rejoin the driver who has to escort us to the hotel, and we leave in the late afternoon. We arrive at our accommodation, a private house furnished with sumptuous satin and wood. We have a room with an open bathroom on the top floor.
HOTEL: Aura Homestay Royal Villa
With Uber we reach a famous stepped well, the Panna Meena ka Kund. We return to the city, and we take a long walk at sunset in the center of the pink city, going to photograph the Hawa Mahal and the gates of the fortified city. We walk through the nightly bazaars, and finally go to dinner.
DINNER: Peacock rooftop restaurant
DAY 11
Jaipur - Agra
We prepare our suitcases and get ready to go to Amber Fort, another beautiful Moghul fortress that dominates the city, at a great distance. The fort is large but very crowded. We get lost among the gardens, the women's galleries, the deserted rooms, and conclude our visit.
We return to the city, where we visit the royal palace, with its portals inlaid with peacocks and its pink buildings. We make another stop at the Hawa Mahal, this time during the day, going to enjoy a burrito and a mango lassì.
PRANZO: The Tattoo Cafe & Lounge
We visit the peculiar Astronomical Observatory, and make a quick photo stop at the Patricka Gate, at the Jawahar Circle, before going to pick up our luggage and go to the station, to catch our train to Agra. In the city Uber is the cheapest and quickest way to get around, and helped us throughout the trip.
We arrive in Agra late in the evening, after having eaten something served on the train, and we go immediately to sleep in view of the alarm clock before dawn the next day, for our visit to the Taj Mahal.
HOTEL: Seven Hills Tower Agra
DAY 12
Agra - New Delhi
We wake up before 5:00. We wait for an Uber-tuk tuk to bring us close to the entrance to the monument, and we make the short queue that leads us to the first access at 6 a.m., previously booked online. A garden, a portal, and immediately in front of us the magnificent spectacle of the Taj Mahal, wrapped in the morning mist. The crowd of people disappears in front of this magnificent monument, the garden is large enough to make people scatter, and the points from which to take pictures are well designed, so as not to have the view occupied by hordes of tourists looking for the same shot.
We go back to the hotel to pack our bags and we walk in the poor streets of the agglomeration that develops around the Taj Mahal. After that, we venture into the city center. Here, too, we visit the Red Fort, a decadent complex of buildings, from which we can admire the great white mosque in the distance. We walk through the streets of Agra, and finally we go to the station to take our last train, to New Delhi.
When we arrive in Delhi, we are surprised by a storm that creates havoc in the multitude of taxis and people crowding the station: we share an Uber with another couple and reach the hotel. We go out for dinner, in a sort of fast food restaurant that prepares meals from southern India. We wait in the queue outside for a while, and then we enjoy a small dinner.
CENA: Saravanaa Bhavan | HOTEL: Janpath Bloomrooms
DAY 13
Delhi
We walk from our hotel to explore every corner of the city. We make a short stop at the Agrasen ki Baoli, a charming stepped well that stands between the modern office buildings of Central Delhi.
We arrive by walking in traffic at Connaught Place, a large road junction consisting of a huge square surrounded by concentric buildings. New Delhi doesn't offer much special to visit. We reach Old Delhi, whose streets teeming with people, where it is difficult to walk in the dense crowd, orbit around the central artery, Chandni Chowk. It's not an aesthetically pleasing neighborhood, a network of degraded streets and dilapidated shops, but you won't find a neighborhood more representative of India than Old Delhi.
After spending a few hours making our way through the tuk tuk and traders with heavy bags of chili on their heads, we visited the Red Fort. A semi-abandoned place, and after seeing the beautiful forts of Rajasthan, we are greatly disappointed. We return to Connaught Place in the late afternoon, and treat ourselves to a snack in a sumptuous café.
SNACK: Farzi Cafe
DAY 14
Delhi
Early in the morning we head south of Delhi to visit the Baha'i House of Worship, commonly known as Lotus Temple. It is a huge marble structure in the form of a lotus flower that houses a temple for the practice of the Baha'i religion. We take a taxi and move to a further area of the city, to visit the complex of the Qutb Minar, a historical site that houses the remains of mosques, a minaret, and porches inlaid in stone.
The last area, still to the south, that we visit, after having done a careful search to find something beautiful to see in New Delhi, is Lodhi Colony: a district dating back to the '40s, originally built to house the last officers of the British army who resided in the capital with their families. The blocks that make up the colony are made with symmetrical and almost identical buildings, and in recent years the administration has granted about 20 facades to international artists who have transformed these walls into canvases on which to create artistic masterpieces of all kinds.
After spending a few hours looking for the most striking graffiti, we return to the city center after sunset, and go to dinner, before returning to pick up the suitcases and go to the airport to catch our 3:40 am flight to return to Zurich.
DINNER: Desi vibes
This content is NOT SPONSORED, but based on my genuine personal experience. Spontaneous opinions, positive and negative, shareable or not, that I hope will help to live better travel experiences. My advice is a guide to lead you through world explorations, but the real journey, you build it
